Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

One of my close friends is walking precariously close to the edge and I am afraid that any warning I shout or any abrupt move I make to reach out to her will startle her and cause her to tumble.

My friend is one of those girls. By this, I mean she is so startlingly beautiful that people do a double take just to make sure they don't know her from some magazine. She is fit (a great runner) and sexy and fresh and stunning. She stands out in a crowd. Usually women like this are off-putting to other women, that old jealousy thing, but something about my friend makes her beauty a magnet instead of repellent. Initially it might be a bizarre form of curiosity, like, is this woman really equally pretty on the inside? Once you realize that her beauty goes all the way through, curiosity turns into comfort and there you are. Lucky to be in her good company.

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Except for one, hopefully short-lived, problem.

She doesn't see herself this way. Someone said something negative to her that should have come off in the wash, but it stuck. It somehow set off a chain reaction of other long-buried mines of doubt and delusion. And now it's like someone has replaced her mirror with a circus fun house mirror and she can't see anything clearly anymore.

Everyone can relate. It's like the sad hostility, the PMS feeling of trying on ten different things while trying to get ready to go somewhere, all of them insufficient and stifling. Everything feels unflattering, but the only useful thing to change is our perspective, not our outfit. But no one can hear that when they are in their closet with their clothes in a heap, clock ticking, time to go or else be late.

I run with my friend, listen to her, pray with her, pray for her. But I can't make her see herself the way everyone else sees her, especially God. Why do we do this with our beauty? We stuff it, warp it, minimize it, starve it, berate it, and then wonder where it goes. I know that she will one day be a 70 year old woman who comes across a photograph of herself from this era and she will weep as though seeing this woman for the very first time. She will weep for time lost, for days spent worrying about nothing and time spent chasing something that she possessed all along.

And so here I stand, on the periphery of my friend's sadness. I wish I could use my creativity for her healing...paint her, sketch her, describe her with words, illuminate her from the inside out, so that she could finally see. Or run with her, so far and so fast that everything false would be burned as fuel.

Our culture breeds such insecurity, it runs rampant across our femininty, taking hostages in its wake. Let's run counter to it, circle 'round the other way, surprise it, take our people back.

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